A Roadmap upgrade

One of the most satisfying things in building software products is being able to have a community of users you can stay in contact with. Users who, first and foremost, are people, professionals with whom it’s nice to share problems and solutions, even just over a forum. Also, it’s really astounding how much important information you can collect, and the quantity of interesting ideas that you’re offering to us.

That’s why a year ago we decided to create more effective communications tools, specifically in order to share as quickly as possible just how we are using all this information. These efforts culminated in the Roadmap, a tool that delivers real-time updates on the most significant development activities for Instant Developer and lets you vote for the ones you like best.

Starting today the Roadmap is getting a makeover, raising the level of communication within our community, and making the assessment of the technical work resulting from your proposals more objective. What does that mean?

First and foremost, every initiative that originates in the forum or the support service is evaluated independently by at least three technicians, who define its level of general interest and how difficult it is to achieve. This way, we have a decision support system that allows us to choose which changes are most helpful among those we have in our database.

Proposals of more general interest about which there are diverging opinions are published in the Roadmap so you can vote on them, and each vote automatically increases the level of interest in our decision support system. We don’t publish everything you suggest because we only want to ask your opinion when we need it and not bother you unnecessarily.

But starting today, whenever an activity wraps up, it will be announced in the forum conversation about it so that everyone who participated will be notified. If the activity was public, everyone who voted for it will receive an alert by email. If it originated with the support service, an email will be sent to whomever made the request. This way, you’ll know as soon as possible that the new functionalities, improvements, or corrections that you’re interested in will be available in the next release of Instant Developer.

And finally, I’d like to thank all of you who are helping us improve with your suggestions, and I’ll take this opportunity to ask you what you think of this initiative.

I so like the level of communication from Pro Gamma/Instant Developer. Its so nice to get feedback on ideas or suggestions we have offered. I liked the roadmap from the first time I opened it. Now taking it to another level is just one more sign of the commitment you have made to the product and those who use it.